Posts Tagged: ‘atlantis’

As if, on the heels of a devastating earthquake-tsunami combo in Japan, we needed any more reminders of Mother Nature’s destructive power, researchers think they may have finally located a storied city she pummeled ages ago. Perhaps you’ve heard of it — it’s a little place called Atlantis, and according to a team of archeologists led by Connecticut-based professor Richard Freund, it’s sitting somewhere beneath the marshlands of the Dona Ana Park in southern Spain.

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The Baghdad batteries and the Antikythera mechanism have puzzled many historians — they just appear too advanced for their time. Where did they come from? Listen in and learn why some people think we’ve drastically underestimated ancient civilizations.

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In Monday’s podcast, Sarah and I debated whether or not there was ever an Atlantis.

The Atlantis story comes from Plato, but was he telling the story of a historical event, or simply teaching a moral lesson? In Plato’s unfinished trilogy of dialogues, he recounts the destruction of Atlantis due to the greed of its people. Throughout the years, the idea of a sunken city has captured the imagination of the most unlikely bedfellows. Heinrich Himmler, for example, used his position within the SS to send expeditions to such far-flung locales as Tibet to look for Atlantis.

Pocahontas was the subject of Wednesday’s podcast. “Pocahontas” is no one’s favorite Disney movie, but the woman herself has an interesting story.

Pocahontas became acquainted with the settlers when she was 10 or 11, but the story of her rescuing John Smith may have been completely made up. Smith’s accounts were notoriously unreliable, and he didn’t publish this sensationalized account until after she’d become famous.

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Fiction lovers adore splendid underwater cities. It used to be the ancient, lost Atlantis (or its similarly mythical colonies) that made regular appearances in books and movies. Then it was high-tech underwater bases. Now it’s more likely to be real, recognizable coastal cities drowned in a global warming end game.

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In 1937, famous aviator Amelia Earhart attempted to circumnavigate the globe via airplane. However, she disappeared over the Pacific and was never seen again. Listen in to learn more about the mystery in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com.

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You may have heard buzz this past week about the “discovery” of the ancient mythical island of Atlantis. Using the new feature of Google Ocean, aeronautical engineer Bernie Bamford spotted what he thought looked like a sunken city grid on the Atlantic Ocean’s floor 600 miles off the coast of northwest Africa, according to Telegraph.

Alas, this recent find was all a mistake, says Google. The DailyMail reports that Google believes the supposed grid to be just a blip — rather than an ancient city, it represents the path of the boat that was mapping sonar information.

Although the story had the public and historians excited, we can add this to the long list of dubious theories about the location (or even existence) of Atlantis. So, why are some diehards relentlessly searching for the remains of the ancient civilization while others doubt that it existed at all?

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